Corrado Bafile

Corrado Cardinal Bafile ( born July 4, 1903 in L' Aquila, Italy; † 3 February 2005 in Rome) was Apostolic Nuncio to Germany and later Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Life

Corrado Bafile was the twelfth and last child of the physician Vincenzo Bafile and his wife Maddalena born Tedeschini - D'Annibale. He studied for his school years at universities in Munich and Rome initially Chemistry ( with Richard Willstätter ), then Law, received his doctorate after completing his specialist training in Rome to Dr. iur. and practiced for six years in Rome and Munich as a lawyer before he decided to give up his worldly profession, entered the Pontifical Roman Seminary in Rome and Catholic theology and philosophy studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

On April 11, 1936, he received the priesthood in Rome. He then continued his studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, in 1944 at the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum doctoral degrees in canon law. Initially he worked in the administration of the Vatican Secretariat of State. In 1939 he entered the diplomatic service of the Vatican. During this time Bafile was a part-time pastoral work, including also in the governance of the Legion of Mary in Italy. On November 1, 1958 Bafile was the first of the four serving real secret chamberlain at the Vatican.

On February 13, 1960, he was by Pope John XXIII. appointed Titular Archbishop of Antioch in Pisidia, and ordained a bishop on 19 March of the same year by the Pope himself. From 1960 to 1975 he was the successor of Aloysius Muench as Apostolic Nuncio of the Vatican diplomatic representative in the Federal Republic of Germany. As Dean of the West German diplomatic corps he had to perceive a wide range of social and ceremonial duties in Bonn; Konrad Adenauer linked him personal friendship. Because of its great diplomatic influence and his fate in the enforcement of conservative positions called him the German tabloid press a "Tiger in a velvet robe ." He succeeded the conclusion of a Concordat and several contracts. Bafile in 1961 and 1963 respectively honorary member of the Catholic fraternities K.St.V. Unitas Wroclaw to Cologne in CT and K.D.St.V. Ripuaria Bonn in CV.

1973 attracted Bafile stir in the Federal Republic with the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to Limburg Bishop Kempf by a secret letter to Secretary of State Cardinal Jean Villot to let disempower and to force them to resign. By an unknown employee of the State Secretariat got a copy of the letter to Kempf, who thus turned to the German Bishops' Conference, as well as to the German press. Background were clearly the positions Kempf in the issues of celibacy for priests and forced the participation of the laity in the diocese of line.

In 1975 he returned to the Vatican, where he became executive functions (Pro - Prefect of the Congregation of Saints ). On 24 May 1976 he was called by Pope Paul VI. taken as a cardinal deacon with the title of Santa Maria in Portico diakonia in the College of Cardinals. From 1976 to 1980 he served as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On 22 June 1987 he was elevated to cardinal priests per hac vice. 2003 John Paul II received him, to congratulate him on his 100th birthday. Since 2000, Cardinal Bafile senior member of the College of Cardinals and the oldest since the death of José Calasanz Rosenhammer Catholic bishop.

He died at the age of 102 on 3 February 2005 in the Clinica Pio XI, Rome. He was buried temporarily in the family vault in L' Aquila, but will be later transferred to the parish church of S. Maria Paganica in L'Aquila, in which he was baptized.